The Oscar Winner...From 'Strangers With Candy'

Back in March, director Juan Jose Campanella was surprised to find himself at the Oscar podium collecting a best foreign language film trophy from presenters Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino. (Campanella's dark thriller, The Secret in Their Eyes, which opens in the U.S. tomorrow, upset the heavy favorite, Germany's The White Ribbon.) For our part, we were surprised to find out that Campanella, an Argentine native, had once directed episodes of the seminal comedy Strangers With Candy and was tight with Stephen Colbert. Campanella explains his double life:

Leading up to the Oscars, did you think you had a chance to win?
When we got nominated, I thought it was a great thing for the movie but I had no hopes whatsoever of winning. And then, in the last few days, there are blogs that start talking. They hear rumors and all that. I was a nervous wreck. I thought The White Ribbon was the surefire winner.

You had a great joke in your acceptance speech—a joke the audience completely missed.
The joke tanked!

You said you were relieved that the Academy didn't consider Na'vi a foreign language. That's funny!
No one laughed. It made me more nervous than the countdown thing, which is a totally rude thing.

Tarantino presented the Oscar to you. What did he whisper in your ear?
I remember him looking at me and with a very funny voice—with an overblown Spanish accent, almost like that character Mandy Patinkin plays in The Princess Bride—he said, "Juan Jose Campanella!" Like a joke! And I think he said something like maestro or something like that. And I expressed my admiration for Inglourious Basterds.

Your film, The Secret In Their Eyes, is about a detective, on the brink of retirement, looking back on an unsolved case from 25 years ago—one that still keeps him up at night. Your film has a killer ending. Did you want to tell people in the audience, "Don't leave early!"
We considered saying that in the ads, but then it's such an old trick. I didn't even want people to expect a twist ending, so they would be completely surprised. And I think that the audiences were actually very good at it. They didn't spoil it, even when they left comments at our site.

The female lead in the film is a lawyer, and she makes a point of saying she went to Cornell. I went to Cornell, and I have to say: The Big Red never gets name-checked in films. What gives?
Well that's the thing. Everybody in Argentina thinks there are only three universities in America: Yale, Harvard, and Columbia. Princeton doesn't exist. We were playing on that. I really wanted to have one of the lesser known Ivy League ones, internationally.

No respect! After the Oscars, what happened when you went back to Argentina? Were you a hero?
It was a bit crazy. I didn't have anybody tearing at my clothes, but it does become intense. The president invited the whole team to the Pink House, La Casa Rosada.

I have to ask: How did you get involved with Strangers with Candy? That show starred Amy Sedaris and Stephen Colbert, and it had such a uniquely American sensibility.
I think I directed ten episodes. I lived in New York for 20 years. I had done a comedy show in '95 or '96 called Remember WENN. It was the first fiction that AMC ever produced. Rupert Holmes wrote it. I guess through people I knew on that show, and working on Upright Citizens Brigade, I went to Strangers. Amy, Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert—that was a special connection. To me, Strangers with Candy was profanity and vulgarity like written by Noel Coward. Amy talked about a hot guy, saying, "I'd love to take him behind my meat curtains." And she said, "He makes me all damp in the cellar." There were lines that were so very literary in a way. But vulgarity written by Noel Coward.

It couldn't be further from The Secret In Their Eyes.
Yes, yes. Well, you don't only get one sensibility. You know, I almost got to direct the movie of Strangers with Candy.

Really?
Yes, yes. And then Paul decided that he would do it himself. But they're geniuses. I think that one of the highest moments in politics and entertainment was Stephen's speech in front of Bush, at the White House Correspondents dinner. I saw it on YouTube. I was feeling like, 'Oh my god, oh my god, truly how could he be there and say that?' I thought, I can't believe I worked with these guys.